


Lucky Strike

by Isis



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Jacob meets Queenie again for the first time.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LillyRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LillyRose/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta, chamekke.

Jacob Kowalski had always held a healthy respect for the powers of fate. That was what the war taught a man: the bullet might go over your head, or it might go into your heart, and there was no way of knowing ahead of time which it was going to be. His grandmother would have boxed his ear and told him severely that it was all God's will. But plenty of Jacob's buddies had never made it out of the battlefield, and it didn't seem right to him that a God who loved everybody would have picked them out, in particular, to get blown to pieces. There was something else out there flipping coins or tossing dice, choosing where the lightning would strike, and whatever (or whoever) it was, you couldn't fight it. You just had to go along for the ride.

He knew it was fate when the strawberry blonde knockout walked into Kowalski Quality Baked Goods. There was something about her – he didn't know what it was – but his stomach gave a lurch and his mind turned to porridge, and for some weird reason his neck began to throb. He was certain he'd seen her before somewhere. No, that was crazy. Where could he have met a classy dame like this one? No way did he move in her circles. Maybe she had been at the bank when he'd asked for the loan to open his shop?

Jacob rubbed at the spot on his neck. It was beginning to itch. The blonde was admiring a tray of pastries. No, not just admiring: she was leaning toward the glass case, inhaling with her eyes closed and a delighted smile on her face, as though she were trying out a fancy perfume at Macy's. Did women who looked like that even _eat_ pastries? 

_Don't blow it, Kowalski._ "Can I help you?" He was sure his voice came out as a squeak.

"Oh, honey," said the blonde. "Of course I eat pastries. These look so good, too. You've really made them look just like Occamies, all coiled up like that. Of course Occamies don't really have cream fillings, but I bet they taste heavenly."

He frowned. "They look like something you know?" He'd come up with the shape because he wanted something curled around a cream filling, and immediately he'd thought of snakes, because of the way they coiled. But nobody liked snakes, and he didn't want to scare folks off, so he gave them feathery little wings of flaky dough, to make them something else, like snaky birds. People liked birds.

She gave a little gasp, and her smile disappeared. "Oh, no! I'm not supposed to – Tina will be so angry with me." 

"She won't," he said immediately. Anything to erase the horrified, stricken look from her face. Not that he had any idea who Tina was or why she'd be angry, but he hated to see this angel looking so unhappy. He reached for a couple of the pastries she'd been looking at, and held them out to her. Pastries always made things better. 

"She will," sobbed the woman, and rushed out the door.

Jacob didn't think. He only knew that he couldn't let her leave. He might never see her again, and that would be a tragedy. He yelled to the back for Maisie to come to the counter, slid the pastries into a box, then pushed through the crowd of customers. 

"Mr. Kowalski!" said one affronted man as he was elbowed aside.

"Sorry, sorry, back in a moment. Hey! Hey, lady!" Jacob wasn't a fast runner, but her high heels slowed her down, and he caught up with her just as she was about to turn, inexplicably, into an alley that he knew for a fact dead-ended into a wall.

When she turned to him, her beautiful eyes were full of tears. "You're so sweet. Nobody I've ever met has ever been as sweet as you."

"That is a very nice thing to say, miss. Especially considering that, well – we haven't actually met." He frowned. "Though you do seem awfully familiar. Say, _have_ we met somewhere before?"

That started her crying, and Jacob stood there for a moment, bewildered, before awkwardly patting her on the shoulder. "Here," he said, thrusting the box toward her. "One for you and one for Tina. She won't be angry after she eats one of these, and maybe you won't be so sad."

She hiccuped out a sob, then caught her breath and shook her head. She didn't take the box. "You're really something special, you know that?"

He shrugged. "I'm just a fella." _A fella who would like to ask you out on a date. No matter what Tina thinks, whoever she is._

"Tina is my sister, and – and – and it doesn't _matter_ what she thinks," declared the blonde. She wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders. "And my name's Queenie Goldstein, and I want you to come over for dinner tonight after you close up your bakery." 

Jacob listened, dumbstruck and dumbfounded, as she gave him the address. The bullet had definitely gone into his heart, and he had no idea why or how, only that it had, and he was helpless in the face of it. All he could do was nod his head, and when she was finished, say, "Listen, I'll bring over some pastries. For dessert."

Her smile was blinding. "Of course you will, honey." And then – then she disappeared. Right into the air, like she'd never been there at all.

He ought to feel frightened, or at least worried that she'd just been a particularly vivid hallucination. That when he arrived at Queenie's door, he'd only find a Chinese laundry, or an angry old man. But somehow it didn't bother him, seeing her disappear like that. It didn't even bother him that he still held the box with the pastries. He'd be seeing her again tonight, he was sure of it.

His neck still throbbed as he walked back to his bakery, whistling. Maybe he _had_ been hit by lightning. Good thing he'd run after her – and lucky he'd caught up with her. Because everybody knew lightning never struck twice.


End file.
